Women in the Media: Revenge
Revenge of Gender
People have learned to categorize objects and themselves into different groups in order to keep an organized group or society. One of the main categories is sex, male or female, which is established immediately when someone is born. At first glance they are differentiated by their reproductive organs, but then they are both given different and specific characteristics that they should follow. Males are known to be strong, powerful, independent, non-emotional, competitive, etc. while the female is known to be someone emotional, sensitive, dependant, weak, quiet, innocent, etc. All these characteristics are defined and learned in society especially through the media. The media shows the roles that each gender should exhibit. This essay will use the example of Emily Thorne, the protagonist of the television series of Revenge, in order to demonstrate how recent media are trying to demonstrate woman in a more feministic view, but still carry a strict definition of male and female.
Emily Thorne is the main character on the ABC television series of Revenge, which aired recently in 2011. In the show Emily Thorne, whose actual identity is that of Amanda Clark, goes back to the Hamptons, where she grew up, in order to seek revenge on those who framed her father for a crime that he had not committed. She is presented as a heroine; a female version of James Bond. Throughout the series, she seeks justice for those who do not have it and deserve it.
Representation of gender in the media has always held a primitive view. Liestbet Van Zoonen concludes in her article Gender Representation and the Media that “gender appears to be an unstable phenomenon only ostensibly pinned down in the dominant discourse of binary and hierarchical gender relations, but in fact continuously escaping categorizations and definition”(1995, pg. 327). Throughout time a plethora of these representations of the female gender in media has changed. Women in today’s society have much
People have learned to categorize objects and themselves into different groups in order to keep an organized group or society. One of the main categories is sex, male or female, which is established immediately when someone is born. At first glance they are differentiated by their reproductive organs, but then they are both given different and specific characteristics that they should follow. Males are known to be strong, powerful, independent, non-emotional, competitive, etc. while the female is known to be someone emotional, sensitive, dependant, weak, quiet, innocent, etc. All these characteristics are defined and learned in society especially through the media. The media shows the roles that each gender should exhibit. This essay will use the example of Emily Thorne, the protagonist of the television series of Revenge, in order to demonstrate how recent media are trying to demonstrate woman in a more feministic view, but still carry a strict definition of male and female.
Emily Thorne is the main character on the ABC television series of Revenge, which aired recently in 2011. In the show Emily Thorne, whose actual identity is that of Amanda Clark, goes back to the Hamptons, where she grew up, in order to seek revenge on those who framed her father for a crime that he had not committed. She is presented as a heroine; a female version of James Bond. Throughout the series, she seeks justice for those who do not have it and deserve it.
Representation of gender in the media has always held a primitive view. Liestbet Van Zoonen concludes in her article Gender Representation and the Media that “gender appears to be an unstable phenomenon only ostensibly pinned down in the dominant discourse of binary and hierarchical gender relations, but in fact continuously escaping categorizations and definition”(1995, pg. 327). Throughout time a plethora of these representations of the female gender in media has changed. Women in today’s society have much
References: Fauludi, S. (1991). Introduction and Chapter 4: “The Trends of Anti-Feminism: The media and the backlash.” Backlash. New York: Anchor Books. Gerhard, J. (2011) “Sex and the City: Carrie Bradshaw’s Queer Postfeminism.” Gender, Race and Class in Media, Third Edition. California: Sage. Van Zoonen, L. (1995). “Gender, Representation and the Media.” In J. Downing, A. Mohammadi and A Sreberny-Mohammadi (eds.). Questioning the Media. New York: Sage.